


Unequal Intentions

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Full Metal Panic
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-09
Updated: 2010-02-09
Packaged: 2017-10-07 03:19:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurz Weber is in love. Melissa Mao isn't. This is a love story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unequal Intentions

She likes the physical part about being around machines. He has noticed this. She always smells nice but not like a girl, she smells of strength and reassurance. You can always find a hint of grease stains on her clothes at the end of the day, before she jumps into a shower.

She is more like him, in that way, although she wouldn't want to be told (&amp; he is not about to tell her). She likes to act as if things were uncomplicated even if they are not. Unlike Sousuke, who is always turning things round and round in his head, and that can't be healthy.

So Kurz knows the trick is to make her believe this is a simple thing.  
  
-  


He wants more than just be annoying to her.

But "annoying" is a good start.  
  
-  


`Why don't you want to have sex with me?´ He finally confronts her.

`Because you could die any day. I don't want that bother. Why do you want to have sex with me?´

`Because I could die any day. I wouldn't want to miss it.´

She kisses him.  
  
-  


It's not easy to pinpoint where it started.

_He started it_ but he doesn't know where it started.  
  
-  
  
(always her room, her bed, never his; unwritten rules)

He licks the beads of sweat between her breasts – it takes his breath away a bit, how much this feels exactly like he had imagined.

(she doesn't let him stay at first, she kicks him out of her bed when they're done. _literally_ kicks him out of her bed)  
  
-  
  
All fears of it interfering with work disappear one night he fucks up a mission – really fucks up a mission, he was impulsive and blew their cover to an enemy who wasn't supposed to known they were being followed – and Mao shouts at him for four solid minutes in front of everybody, officers, mechanics, everybody.

She looks so surprised when he knocks at her door hours later, but he is the one who fucked it up and there's no reason to resent her for that.

That's the first time she lets him sleep the night.  
  
-  
  
This is the hardest and most important thing he'll ever do.

This, Melissa Mao, and how to keep her in his bed, how to keep her from leaving, to trick her into just a couple of moments longer, to keep her stroking his wrist with the side of her hand, absently.  
  
-  
  
Terrorists hold up a floor of a shopping mall in Sydney and they are there.

Mao goes in first and manages to reduce all five culprits singlehandedly without suffering more than a bruise to the side of the neck.

Kurz laughs at her magnificence, rifle in hand and a hard look like she does this every day (she does this every day).

He is appreciative.

`You bitch,´ he says. `you are so cool.´

Mao snorts and later than night she lets him run his tongue over the bruised skin of her neck, he is a bit too soft and gentle and that upsets her. She wraps her legs behind him and twists her hips in retaliation, making him groan.

`You still want to call me _bitch_?´ She asks.

He struggles to give her a cheeky grin.

`Yeah, of course.´  
  
-  
  
Once or twice he considers telling Sousuke about it. Because he doesn't feel fine hiding things from him, such important stuff. Because this "thing" with Mao occupies a great part of his mind, and most of his worries – not to mention certain portion of his waking and not-so-waking hours – so he believes Sousuke should know.

But one: Mao would probably kill him if he ever told anyone, and if she killed him that would probably mean no more sleeping with her.

And two: he is not sure Sousuke would understand.

Not because the boy has a rather limited sense of human interaction or because teenagers are naturally clueless (Kurz is not that much older, but he feels like it). And it's not like he wouldn't understand if Kurz talked to him about sex. But he wouldn't understand this. The dynamic of it. Sousuke loves a girl, that is plain enough to Kurz, but that makes it even harder for him to understand. For him, that's a simple thing, even if he can't figure out how that works for him. What Kurz has – what he fighting so stubbornly to keep – is not that simple.

What Kurz has is not so simple because he can't simply go to Mao and say "I love you".  
  
-  
  
Once, after making her come in a particularly loud fashion, and after observing how she doesn't let go, clinging to his shoulder a little longer than usual, Kurz can't help but remind her:

`I told you you would be clawing at my back some day.´

He expects her to smack him across the mouth, but it's worth it.

She doesn't.

She laughs.

Kurz thinks _maybe, maybe, maybe_.  
  
-  
  
Her birthday comes and he wonders if he should give her something. Maybe canned crab. He starts plotting ways of getting that kind of item inside this ship when he decides she'd probably get angry at him.

(he is disappointed when she doesn't look crossed when he doesn't give her anything)

`Happy birthday,´ he says out of the blue as they walk empty corridors to her room.

He kisses the side of her head casually.

`Er,´ she is caught wrong-footed. `Thanks.´  
  
-  
  
No one in their right minds would call this _wooing_.

Kurz never claimed much sanity, anyway.  
  
-  
  
Of course Sousuke is not an idiot. He is clueless but not an idiot and in the end he finds out.

Or rather in the end Kurz gives himself away.

In a rather ordinary mission things turn out less-than-ordinary and Kurz and Sousuke come more or less intact (their machines not so much) but hours later Mao is still missing in action and Kurz is not allowed to join in a search party.

He punches a hole in the wall of the locker room and that's how Sousuke knows something is off.

He tells him in as little and uncomplicated words as he can. ("We're sleeping together, that's all" is what's said at the moment, although the boy frowns at the _that's all_.)

When Mao turns up alive and well he doesn't even go see her and welcome him back, as it would be normal between colleagues. He wishes he could take the whole day back.

`She can't know that you know,´ he tells Sousuke.

`Fine, I will keep the secret if that's what you wish.´

Kurz grabs the kid by the neck of his uniform and pushes him against the wall. Sosuke could have probably stopped him if he had wanted.

`Promise me you won't say a word,´ he says, grinding his teeth.

`Kurz...´

He lets Sousuke go.

He sits on the bench, running his fingers through his hair, softly cursing under his breath and shaking his head in embarrassment. The boy sits by his side.

Kurz clenches his fingers into fists and tells himself he'd never live it down if he breaks down, starts crying in front of Sousuke.

`Kurz.´

`Ah, sorry I just gave you such a hard time,´ he replies in his lighthearted, fake voice. But it soon changes again, into a sad, gentle tone. `It's just that... I'm not what she wants. And. She will break it off, if anyone finds out. And I rather she didn't. I'd really rather she didn't. So if you could give me a hand here and not say anything...´

The boy just nods.  
  
-  


There's a quiet moment, one of the rare ones, and he threatens to tell her.

`What if I go tomorrow into battle,´ he says. `Or you go, and we get ourselves killed and I _never said it_. That would suck.´

`This is why I didn't want to sleep with you. It's a bother. A couple of nights together and you think the world of-´

`That's bullshit, and you know it, Melissa.´

`I'm still your superior, you brat.´

`Then... I request permission to speak my mind, Sergeant Major.´

`Permission denied,´ she says in flat, frozen tones.

This is the closest he will be to getting angry with her.

`What are you so afraid of?´

She doesn't answer and he doesn't press.

If that's what it takes, keep his big mouth shut, to make her happy (or what she thinks would make her happy) then that's what Kurz is going to fucking do.  
  
-  
  
He entertains the notion of really getting himself killed, just to piss her off.

He entertains the notion of withdrawing sex as a tactic but he lasts one night.

_It's never going to be anymore than this. Is it?_ He wonders idly, uselessly, one time, with Mao resting her head on the hollow of his shoulder in the few occasions she has gotten domestic with him. He doesn't ask out loud. He knows the answer. He stays nonetheless.  
  
-  
  
They have got to know each other quite well over time.

All those days spent guarding Kaname, for example. Kurz would get bored of surveillance and following the girl around and he would talk to Mao through the intercom all the time. He would mainly say stupid things, yes, and Mao would mostly ignore him or tell him to shut up in as many offensive words as she could, but it was communication of some sort.

And he is not completely stupid, he knows what a nice person she is, after all; all those times she handed him a beer or bought him a magazine he liked on the way to the flat, or how she sometimes didn't say anything if he overslept and how she liked the dishes he cooked and how well she looked wearing just a towel- No. He was kind of happy back then.  
  
-  
  
He begins wondering what had made him so restless in his pursue.

Yes, he had imagined the sex to be earth-shatteringly good with Mao. But sure there were other women out there with whom to have earth-shattering sex. Women that would be more responsive to his advances. Why did he insist? There were plenty of other women, surely, less intelligent women, less violent, less his-bossy, less Mao-ish.

And yet.

This is how it started: he didn't want _uncomplicated_. He wanted Melissa Mao.


End file.
